Defiance Bids All Over Budget

New talk about a new build­ing are now start­ing anew, fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery that all the bids for Defi­ance County’s cour­t­house ren­o­va­tion project have come in too high.

The bids were opened at county com­mis­sion­ers’ meet­ing Thurs­day, and accord­ing to the Cres­cent News, were all at least 10 per­cent higher than the engineer’s esti­mate.

Now, the com­mis­sion­ers have to decide whether to cut back on the work and rebid the ren­o­va­tion project, or can­cel it com­pletely.

While they mull that over, com­mis­sion­ers yes­ter­day can­celed Monday’s sched­uled move of the offices of the com­mon pleas court, juvenile/probate court and the clerk of courts, to tem­po­rary quar­ters.

Those offices would have stayed there while the cour­t­house was being recon­fig­ured, How­ever, now that ren­o­va­tion work may not hap­pen after all, after none of the quotes pro­vided by four dif­fer­ent con­tracters, were even close to the esti­mated con­struc­tion cost of $5.3 mil­lion.

Com­mis­sion­ers will take another look at their options at a meet­ing set for 7:30 a.m. Monday.